It was more than a little uncomfortable to go from being behind enemy lines as insurgents to staying in the Royal Castle as honoured guests. After Kel and her men had cleaned up the mess on the green Habek and his allies, who had assisted at the would-be-execution, convened the Council of Ten. Among the first act he initiated he declared a ceasefire and named Kel and her team as the official Tortallan ambassadors.

Personally Kel was concerned with the severe degree to which they had exceeded their original orders to simple rescue Habek and his allies' families. She had escaped with her skin intact over the whole Blayce incident; she certainly didn't think her luck would hold out for twice.

"You have your worrying face on mother." A high voice told her sternly. Kel gave a rare smile to her servant; he was right about her worrying. "Sir Neal says you need to come and eat sommat afore you pass out milady." Neal and Tobe were nightmares on their own, but when they both teamed up over her welfare she knew she was doomed.

Meekly she followed Tobe the small hall that had been assigned to her people and took a healthy portion of food, so Tobe wouldn't start on that one next. Dom and his squad were already seated at the long table that filled the hall. Casually she took the empty space next to him, all her focus on not blushing. Needless to say Dom's men had ribbed her and Dom mercilessly since their impromptu kiss on the green.

Wolset was in the middle of what he and the rest of the squad took to be an amusing anecdote about Dom flirting with Kel as a Squire, when Thom wandered in their little hall. Kel sometimes wondered if the Lioness's eldest son did much that was intentional and didn't seem totally absentminded. "I just spoke with the King again."

Wolset, mercifully trailed off, and Kel was silently grateful. She and Dom has barely done more than kiss and decide they would like to court and it seemed their friends were seeing them married and settled. Apart from Neal at least, he still acted like the whole thing was a burden for him to put up with.

"Do we have new orders?" Kel asked hopefully. She was eager to return to New Hope, even more so to just be out of Scanra. Thom nodded, then realised he might need to relay the actual orders.

"We are authorised to return to our side of the border." Kel knew the Lioness's son was a known brilliant mage, but he also seemed to have half the conversation in his head and never realise it.

"To New Hope?" Dom queried helpfully, seeing the problem.

"Oh no, Northwatch, to Lord Wyldon." Thom seemed surprised, as if they should have known that Northwatch was to be their destination.

"I presume we are leaving tonight?" Neal prodded. Absentminded Thom might be, but when he thought they were questioning him he showed flashes of his mothers famous temper too.

"No, tomorrow morning, we are to take official letter from the Council of Ten back with us." Shaking her head, Kel could only imagine if Thom ever attempted to give such an incomplete report to Wyldon or Raoul. About to give the order to prepare everything to depart in the morning Thom decided to speak again. "Lord Habek is expecting you in the council chamber, Lady Kel." Then he drifted off towards the table laden with dishes.

Neal snorted behind his hand and Dom openly smirked at her. Shaking her head at their silliness Kel pushed herself to standing. "See that our things are packed, Tobe and everyone get an early night. We ride as early as I roll out of bed."

"Will that be before or after Dom, milady?" one of the men snickered. Kel felt sick for a moment. This was the sort of thing Raoul had warned her about, when a female takes command and is involved with someone under that command. The man who had spoken was the newest member of Dom's squad Lisle of Taima. It could start like this: small inappropriate jokes and innuendo and grow to impact her effectiveness in giving commands and seeing them obeyed.

"Whatever way it is Lisle, it is no concern of yours. So I would suggest you pull your mind from the city gutter where your humour lies and back to the task of making it out alive and safe from a hostile country. I am clear?" Kel could only hope making an example here would cut it off. After all if she couldn't put Dom's squad straight it would be worse where she didn't have friends and warriors that accepted her on her terms.

"I said, am I clear?" she demanded again of the flabbergasted young man.

"Yes..." he agreed hurriedly.

"Yes, what?"

"Yes, ma'am." He amended, looking suitably ashamed.

"Good. Sergeant Domitan, see to it that your squad is packed and ready to leave in the morning." With that Kel left to speak with Habek. She felt a little bad getting so formal, especially as Dom's squad were also her friends, but she had already had to fight so hard against discrimination against her sex. What bordered on an overly familiar comment to friendly ears would be a ringing condemnation to hostile ones.

But whether she had been wrong or right in pulling Lisle up, that was a concern for when they were back in Tortall. First they had to get there, alive and preferably in one piece. Habek wasn't alone when Kel reached the great chamber that served as the council meeting room. "Lord Habek?" she interrupted tentatively.

"Ah, Lady Knight, good." Habek looked up from the mass of documents sprawled over the giant table. Despite the size of the table there were only two others with Habek, and Kel suspected that they were clerks. "We will finish this later, gentlemen." He politely informed his two companions and stood to indicate that they should leave.

"You look very busy, the Council keeping you busy?" Kel commented wryly, taking the seat he offered.

"No more than necessary I think. Though I'm sure you know what it is to be kept useful for your country." He replied, not sitting himself. "The Council offered me the throne." He went on solemnly and Kel had to remember her Yamani control to keep her expression clear.

"I see," she said finally, when he failed to go on. "Is that what you wished to see me about?"

"Your reputation is well earned." He commented instead of replying to her question.

"I have a reputation?" Kel was a little surprised. Other than having killed Blayce she had done nothing noteworthy, and very few actually knew the full truth concerning her killing the Nothing Man.

"Of course. The refugee camp under a green knights command, in a vulnerable position and understaffed that turned out to have claws and venom to boot? You kept Maggur frustrated for months and then you killed that ghoul from Galla." That seemed to amuse Habek. "And I've met Stenmun and his axe."

Close to blushing, Kel coughed to hide her embarrassment at being praised to openly. "It was only me doing my duty my Lord." She replied modestly.

"Then you do it to a very high standard, Lady Knight." He seemed to remember himself after that. "Anyway I shall desist embarrassing you and get to the point." He held out a stack of official looking letters. "Our conditions for peace, and proposals for cementing it."

Kel took the offered letters, not quite believing she held the key documents to the end of the war with Scanra in her own two hands. "Thank you, I swear I shall deliver them safely to my Lord Wyldons hands." Habek nodded and Kel took it for a dismissal. Clearly the man had a lot to think about. To take on the bloody throne of Scanra was not an easy or tempting prospect to a man who valued his family so highly.

"I think you would make a fair king, Lord Habek." She said at the threshold. Habek didn't reply, he didn't need to, the real issue would be that could a fair king also be a strong one to survive without turning into a monster like King Maggot.

"Thank you, Lady Knight." Kel heard as she shut the door. For what exactly he was thanking her she wasn't sure but it was somehow nice anyway. The tension in the Tortallan rooms had disappeared when Kel returned. Most of their kits bags were already pack and assembled at one end of the room, ready to go.

To think she'd once have given anything to have an assignment behind enemy lines to babysitting a camp full of refugees, now she couldn't wait to be back there and hearing all the complaints of her charges. Tobe came dashing over, a drink in one hand and a crumpled shirt in the other.

"Lady, I've got one pack left to do and oh, here Sir Nealan says you're to drink this." Hiding a smile Kel took the offered cup of mess, everyday had it downsides apparently. And Neal hadn't forgotten the knock she had received when he and the others had been taken. Holding her nose she swallowed it in one, quick didn't make it better, but it was always fun to lie to herself that it did.

She could already hear, taste and smell the sights and sounds of New Hope and her charges there. She and Dom would also need a serious talk with Dom, she and Cleon and had planned for dealing with the consequences for their romance, she and Dom and no such understanding. The incident with Lisle had shown her that even men of the Own were not all so evolved that they couldn't be crude about a female commander. A sliver of doubt crept in, she didn't know how serious Dom was about her and worse, who knew now the war was over when they'd even see each other again? They could easily be assigned to opposite sides of the country, so constantly on the move that any beyond friendship would be impossible.